


innocent calm

by nannerlinthejungle



Category: 14th Century CE RPF, 15th Century CE RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Vampire, F/M, Gen, M/M, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, more character tags will be added once they actually y'know appeared
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:22:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28665420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nannerlinthejungle/pseuds/nannerlinthejungle
Summary: ://the undead never learns, which is why he's all alone.
Kudos: 63





	1. (interlude)

Hal thought this was how he would die. Not in the burning battle field, not surrounded by people, not with a bang. But with a flicker. Alone.

People with the _gift_ , often forgot how much of the power itself was part of them and not some kind of extension of their entity, it was as real as limbs you were born with. People with power were wired differently, their bodies relied on it to keep going while people without power were subjectively had stronger mundane psyche. Of course people with power didn’t sweat on it too much because the chance of losing power was almost unheard of unless you died. So, of course, no one could’ve told Hal what it meant to have his power taken while also being kept alive. It wasn’t painful, in fact it felt like nothing, but it also felt like a very crucial organ of his had shut down first and slowly the rest gave up too. It had been days since his left hand stopped working, he couldn’t feel anything there, and it won’t listen to him anymore. An utter burden, might as well rip his arm off at this point.

The ceiling was beyond reach, and even if he could get above he doubted he’d slip through the window. Not surprising, since this place wasn’t made for the purpose of letting anyone out. He knew that well but something in Hal wouldn't allow him to rest yet. He thought, there was still something he could’ve done, if he could get out. He could do more; he wasn’t doing enough for them. Or maybe he’d done his part already, maybe this was how he’d suppose to protect his family. Learn how to trust others, right? What was it that their mother had said? Family was a team work, unconditional love would not be enough unless you made an effort. Maybe this was it. This was his final effort. Leave the rest to Thomas. He’d know what to do next.

But also, waiting to die, was tiring too.

Or, did Hal fear death? Did he want to continue to protect his siblings, or did he just too afraid to live on his own? Did they rely on him or it was the other way around? Tiring. Thinking and dying at the same time was tiring.

A thought crossed Hal’s mind about Richard, then. He wondered if this was how Richard had felt these whole time. Alone, waiting for something inevitable that seemed to be stalling cruelly too long, an intense mockery that dulled you until you didn't know the very meaning of existence anymore. He thought, whatever he was going through at the moment, Richard had it worse. So, he couldn't, shouldn't, complain.

Would he be waiting for Hal, or did he know from the beginning that it was useless to hope for something? Because they were not drowning under the same stream of water. Of course, right? Richard was older and wiser, far smarter than Hal, too. It was Hal who couldn’t pick up the cue soon enough, he was too naive, oblivious, in denial. Foolish of him to think on the grand speck of everything, his time was worth something for Richard.

But, there was a solution for all his problems, right? It came from the same source of the problems themselves too, ironically. The curse and its own cure co-existed on the center of it all. He was only the catalyst of his own doom but the problem itself was not Hal at all. It was something else. 

He thought, when did it all started? Long before his time? Or precisely started because of it? What would’ve happened without his burden of knowledge? He didn’t want to know. Chances were, any other way wouldn’t have led him to Richard this way. He wished he’d say more to Richard, too. Or figure out something that wouldn’t make him left out like this. If Hal died, no one would remember Richard. He’d be the last person who had hold memories of Richard. And Richard would be alone again.

Right. Richard had been all by himself all these time. That’s why Hal couldn’t leave him, and Hal did not want to let go of anything but couldn't stop before realizing that the further he took things, the deeper the inevitable emotional void got. They met that night and he knew now that was inevitable. This was definitely written by someone Hal didn’t know.

What a very funny fairytale.


	2. everything but the rain

> **12 Years Ago**

In the evening, John harmonized with Humphrey’s wail and when Hal came to see what was happening, the east drawing room the boys used as their playroom was in shambles. Not that it was an oddity or anything, but the fact that John was also in audible despair meant they’ve set themselves up for a big trouble.

“It’s gone!” John wailed, but Humphrey cried harder on the floor beside him. John looked defeated while Hal noticed something different about Humphrey — no, not the crying part —; he didn’t seem to be injured or anything so Hal thought Thomas and John weren’t being too harsh on whatever game they were playing before. It hit him, though, once Humphrey moved his hard toward his own chest and clutched something imaginary that was supposed to be there, a locket necklace for his fourth birthday last week. Just an empty locket, too, since the person who gave it to Humphrey — their father — obviously couldn’t decide what picture he should put in it, nor that he was aware that four years old kid couldn’t make that kind of decision himself. Personally, Hal thought it was a bad gift for a child but their father had always been the weird one and their mother wrapped that gift so suddenly it became the most treasured thing ever. Which made no sense because with that logic, the real gift would’ve been the wrapping paper.

Thomas was helping, in a way, by pushing back the drawers cabinets that John and Humphrey had searched on frantically but he got bored after four cabinets, and was about to say something mean to their youngest two brothers: “Wuss—”

“Let’s search again, I’ll help.” Hal cut him off.

“No, it’s useless.” John said, as he dropped and lay on the floor. Not even on the carpet, he thought he didn’t deserve to lay on the carpet. Meanwhile, Humphrey hadn’t stop crying and before Hal could say anything to calm him down, Thomas lifted Humphrey up, holding him just below his armpits. “Keep it together, Humpty, you’ll wake Dad up.”

And like a magic spell, Humphrey choked to stop himself from crying, his expression quickly changed into horror. Threatening the boys like this had been the most effective way to force them to behave, not because their father was easy at losing temper at even any micro inconvenience, but because his cold judgmental stare was anything but predictable. They would’ve rebelled quickly if they knew Henry was breathing fire and would’ve soon be immune to any outburst, but it was the sheer of nerveracking panic and anticipation that kept them obedient. Not knowing when Henry would finally snap and what that would look like was much scarier parenting style than, say, imprint of fear by verbal and/or physical abuse.

“When was the last time Humphrey had it?” Hal asked.  
“He wore it when we play in the woods—”  
“— _Thomas_ ,”

“—we weren’t even going that far!” Thomas was quick to protest because he was stubborn, annoyingly stubborn especially when he refused to admit that anything was ever his fault. John was going to suggest that maybe they did go a little further than they were allowed to but Thomas enabled him to shut up and deny any guilt until pressed otherwise. Hal, of course, had no winning in this situation because no matter what, he’d be blamed by proxy as the oldest. Yes, he should’ve kept his eyes on them; also true, he should’ve been there as role model for his younger siblings — but how would one do all that when Hal also had pile of homeworks and studying that kept him away from them and thus left them unsupervised not under Hal’s intention? See, no winning.

The oldest one sighed, because it couldn’t be helped, wasn’t it? Humphrey might had stop crying for a time being but he wore that necklace to sleep and once he doze off and remember it was still missing, Hal bet he would cry again. So, like always, he’d come fabulously late to the problem and expected to fix it for the perpetrators. “If you’re thinking about looking for it in the woods, it’s dark already.” Thomas stated the obvious as he take a look outside through the curtain, contributing with no aide whatsoever once again. Thomas had always been the smart-ass one at the worst time possible when Hal least expected him to be.

“It won’t take long. If I can’t find it, we’ll look together again tomorrow morning.” Hal shrugged, casually brushing off the seriousness of that one rule they were supposed to follow. Sure he knew, realistically, woods was not a playground, even during the day it was still a vast land full of natural death traps, but the skirts of the woods couldn’t be that dangerous, no?

“What about the beast?”

“Thomas! That’s not funny!” John raised his voice in panic and they, even Humphrey though he only copied what Hal did, quickly gestured for him to keep his voice down. John then looked slightly offended that they shushed him but not really bother to do the same when Humphrey was crying like a dolphin.

“I’m joking! Obviously that is just a story Mom and Hal made up to scare us.” Thomas rolled his eyes, mocking how easily convinced John was with it. He was so smug about it too because it proved that Thomas was not as dumb as John. Hal decided not to jump in and remind Thomas about the first time Mom told him the story about the beast that lives in the woods behind their manor — towards the cliff — who ate children after the sun goes down, when Thomas was so scared of that story he wet his bed for one straight week. “Nothing totally lives in the woods, that’s stupid.” He said confidently. Thomas debunked the beast story but John and Humphrey turned to Hal with uncertain expression; John, because he was at that age when his brain could actually made an image of scary monsters that he didn’t want to believe exist right outside their backyard; Humphrey, because he was too young to understand that ‘eat a child’ wasn’t compliment to how sweet you were made of that other being wanted to swallow you, thus he was simply mimicking what John was doing, also.

Hal, of course, ran away as fast as he could instead which made John yelled ‘Hal, that’s not funny!’, because Hal thought they should’ve asked their mother about it, since she was the one who came with the story. It wasn’t like Hal didn’t know whether the beast in the woods was real or not, but he did know that beasts exist in this kingdom. She just didn’t think Henry would’ve let them get so close to their home all these years.

The night was very young and while he wasn’t that scared of the night, Hal planned to get this done as soon as possible before Henry left for work and caught him breaking curfew. Besides, it seemed like it would rain tonight.

* * *

The skirts of the woods was useless, not that Hal was expecting that much of a luck either. He contemplated about returning now as he promised but he also didn’t want to lose to this goddamn woods. Of course, the smartest thing was to come back and tell their mother that Humphrey lost the necklace, once Henry left of course, and she’d know what to do next. And she wouldn’t be mad about it too, which was always nice. Yet, coming back empty handed felt like a defeat, though it wasn’t even a competition with anything nor anyone to begin with, and Hal decided to search for a little bit longer, further, making a mental note to stop and turn back before he lost the view of the manor.

When Hal thought about it, he remembered that one of the servants said something earlier about Thomas, John, and Humphrey ran around the hallway in wet clothes, leaving muddy footprints everywhere. That meant either they were playing in the water fountain again, or they swam at the shallow small pond in this woods. It was very shallow, so Hal and Thomas of course quickly got over it once they were too big to play there, but then came John and Humphrey so they started coming back there again because practically it was safe to bring four years old kid there without worrying that they’d drown him since the water level only reached Humphrey’s tights. It was quite close to the skirts too and they used it as the border marker of how far they could go into the woods, at day.

Good chance: they took off their clothes before swimming which possibly left the necklace on the ground. Bad chance: they jumped into the water fully clothed and the necklace was somewhere on the bottom of the pond. Obvious result: Hal wouldn’t find it anyway because it was dark and he only got a tiny lantern with him. For a good full ten seconds he stood near the pond just to digest how stupid and useless this had been. Accepting his defeat against mother nature, Hal turned around, only to find a shadow figure blocking his path. Startled, because he didn’t hear nor feel the presence of anybody coming, he almost fell backwards and had this figure not hold Hal by his shoulder, he would’ve fell into the pond.

“I’d appreciate if you don’t scream,” the figure said to Hal, and by the baritone of his voice and how the moon reappeared, shedding lights that clear the profiles of his face, Hal realised he was saved by a man.

He didn’t recall to have met this man but for some reason his first instinct was not alerted by the presence of a strange man in the woods behind his home. He should've been nervous, he was smart enough to assess that emotion. Hal’s initial though was that, this man who dressed in appropriately normal clothing, belonged here. Not _belonged in the woods_ per se, but Hal could make sense of why he found this man wandering around. He looked young, too, couldn’t be anything past thirty, so Hal came to a conclusion that the man was one of Henry’s men, and he was simply checking into the woods before he left with Henry and other men as well, just to be sure, since Henry wouldn’t be back until the next morning. Hal’s father, the duke, had that kind of work that required him to be accompanied by quite handful of skilled people, so for Hal, particularly, because he’d learned about what it was like to be Duke of Lancaster, he wasn’t that nervous nor worried when he saw unfamiliar faces rotating around Henry.

“You startled me, sir.” Hal said, forgetting to say thank you and opted to respond to his remark instead because Hal felt like it would’ve been totally justified to scream.

“Should I ask what you are doing here?”  
“I’m looking for a necklace, it’s quite small, my brother’s—ah!”

As soon as the man heard the word necklace, he pulled something from the pocket of his coat and Hal cut himself off mid-sentence when he recognized what the man was holding now.

“This is it?” The man asked as the silver necklace with its locket dangling by his left hand grip. Hal nodded and the man gave it to him.

“Thank you so much, sir—”

“Richard.” The man — Richard — said when Hal’s sentence trailed off as he realized he didn’t know this man yet.

“Oh, like the King!” Hal said, immediately associating the name with their very own King Richard. Quite an enigmatic presence that man was, it seemed like only a handful of people have actually met the king. He heard that it wasn’t always the case, though, although Henry was one of small group of people who were still frequently see him, as much as he allowed them to one of these days, the king was so much more… open, back in old days. Hal wouldn’t know, according to Henry, he suddenly became uncharacteristically private around a decade ago which meant it was before Hal was born.

Meanwhile, that comment made the not-king Richard chuckled. “I suppose so.” Hal wouldn’t understand yet on why this Richard found that comment funny. “Can you find your way home?”

Hal suddenly realised that he’d been out too long and if this man was here to go with Henry it meant that Henry was somewhere in the manor getting ready and if Hal didn’t hurry, he’d get caught. “Yeah! I just follow that path, and uh, I’m sorry but I really have to go now.”

“Be careful.” He said, and Hal nodded in formality.

“Also,” Hal stopped for the last time, just to make sure. “Can you please don’t tell my father I’m here?”

Richard was silent, almost confused for a few seconds, before it hit him what Hal meant, and what Hal perceived who Richard was. He smiled, and asked back: “That depends, which one are you?”

“It’s Hal, my name is Hal.”

* * *

After that, he ran back home, dodged being seen by Henry at the last second when he heard his father's voice coming towards his direction and he immediately jumped in through the window, and it didn't rain all night at all. Later, Henry never mentioned or hinted that he knew about the missing necklace and Hal going into the woods so he was glad Richard kept his promise.

Hal was eight. He wouldn't see Richard for another two years from tonight.


End file.
